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Santander’s attempt to buy back 16.5 billion euros of asset-backed debt looks, at first glance like a bit of a flop: in the end investors only sold about 600 million euros of bonds by face value to the bank.

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It’s interesting to see Russia proposing a new law to encourage a domestic securitisation market for consumer debt. Russia is still a novice when it comes to asset-backed debt but seems to have cottoned on to something that not all western regulators have fully grasped — securitisation may have helped get us into the current crisis, but we are also going to need it to get us out of it.

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Fannie and Freddie’s regulator-in-chief James Lockhart is stepping down to spend more time with his family, Reuters reports. Can’t say I blame him. He’s been at the helm of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, formerly known as OFHEO, for three years, saw through an unprecedented de facto nationalization of the companies, and still the future of the housing finance giants remains nearly as uncertain as it did a year ago.

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Economists seem willing to celebrate even the most tepid economic release these days. The National Association of Homebuilders’ Housing Market Index nudged up slightly to 17 in July, up from 15. Most economists had expected 16, so this is what passes for good news.